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In Germany, there’s a saying when someone has invited you to dinner and you attempt to pay. They say, “No, you are invited.” In German, “Nein, du bist eingeladen.” That means that the inviter expected to pay, and by accepting the invitation, you agreed to be paid for. To violate this would be rude. Okay, maybe not rude, but interesting push back would begin.

In the last 2 plus years living in Germany, I’ve shared the Gospel with hundreds of people. Some are people I know. Some are people I’ve met. And some were just random people. In that time, we haven’t seen GREAT returns, but we’ve seen people saved. In the last year, we’ve also started training groups to help Christians get out there and share their faith. 100% of people who do not hear the Gospel have no chance of salvation. That means, when we share with at least 1 person, their chances increase by 100%. But as I share and train, I come up against the same push back over and over and over. It goes something like this, “I’ve shared Jesus, but no one is interested.” At first, I empathized with this response. I’ve encountered it many times. My usual response is to encourage them to keep sharing. Someone will say, “Yes, I want to follow Jesus.” But recently I’ve pushed back a little when I get this answer, and have found that, just as in America, those sharing Jesus do not offer an invitation to make a choice to transfer their trust from their own redeeming work to the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross. When it comes to salvation, and the most critical step in any Gospel conversation, we must invite those we’ve shared with. Jesus has already paid! They just need to accept His invitation to new life. The power of The Gospel is the power that changes people. And they’re invited to be paid for, too.